How adorable are these little tarts – tree-shaped puff pastry topped with pears, goat cheese, Salty Sweet Pecans, and drizzled with a balsamic reduction? How is that not good? Pears, goat cheese, & pecans are one of those flavor combinations that just go together. You can put them in and on anything – a salad, crostini, in a panini, and because the flavors just work, it’s practically guaranteed to be a success. Give these tarts a try, they would be a welcome addition at your New Year’s Eve party!

I’ve always been a girl that loves sprinkles. Get me a vanilla ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles and I was good to go. I spent my high school years working at our local Dairy Queen and we had a giant plastic container full of rainbow sprinkles. It was pretty great, if you like your sugar to come in several artificial colors.

I consider granola to be a more grown up substitute for rainbow sprinkles and while I put it on ice cream (No I’m not kidding. No, it doesn’t make ice cream healthy. Yes, it is very tasty.), I get much more mileage out of my granola than I ever could with my beloved rainbow sprinkles. A pretty firm exception here is sprinkles on top of cookies and cupcakes. Granola is not a good substitute there! A little bit tossed on top of my oatmeal or layered with fruit and yogurt are my favorite, but recently I even put some on top of my mom’s leftover sweet potatoes from Thanksgiving which was also delicious.

Please allow me to introduce you to my new favorite sandwich – the Turkey Apple Reuben Quesadilla. Truth be told, I have a thing with quesadillas – specifically, I make everything into quesadillas. Why? For starters, it’s a really tasty way to use up lots of miscellaneous bits of leftovers. You put in a little of this, a little of that, add some cheese, and dinner is done. Just about anything tastes good when it is wrapped up in a crispy tortilla and covered in melty cheese, am I right? Yes, of course I am, because a quesadilla maximizes the ratio of toasty shell to warm melty interior, and that’s just where it’s at friends.